How long does it take for a sun to become a white dwarf?

Answer 1

It will most likely happen when the earth is free from all life forms. While the sun is very slowly dying, it must be getting weaker. This will change all things on earth from the weather, plant growth and other such things. And eventually, we will all die. Whether that means all the land will be drowned or dried, it makes no difference. One way or the other our planet will meet its fate. Even if we did survive the earths changes, we won't survive when the sun causes our whole existence to burn to nothing. We would all be dead before we even knew what was happening because of the heat closing in on us. Kind of the reverse of what they call "The Big Bang".

Answer 2

After it uses up most of its hydrogen and helium fuel in nuclear fusion, it will start to produce more energy. Because of this, gravity will no longer be able to 'contain' the plasma being pushed outward by nuclear reactions inside the sun and its outerlayer will be pushed out, becoming a red giant.

Answer 3

An Ice age. Since our sun will no longer have heat or light, every thing will freeze. Nothing will be left, not even an animal with the thickest of fur/hair. Since there is no light, photosynthesis won't take place and the plants will stop taking in carbon dioxide, and stop giving out oxygen.

Answer 4

It takes a couple of billion years for the transformation of a red giant into a white dwarf to occur.

Below you will find a link to a diagram for the life of our sun, which is on its way to becoming a red giant and then a white dwarf.

Hopefully we will be on our way to the stars before our neighborhood star becomes a red giant. As a red giant, our sun will expand and actually engulf the orbits of the inner planets, completely incinerating them. We would be wise to be elsewhere before that time.

Answer 5

Our sun is too small to explode. It would need to be 1.4 times as massive to nova, and 9 times more massive (or more) to supernova.

It will, however, gradually begin to expand into a red giant, some four billion years from now. It will burn only fairly briefly as a red giant, swallowing Mercury and Venus, and possibly even engulfing the earth. It will burn that way for a fairly brief period, just a few million years, before collapsing to a white dwarf. It will burn hot and bright as a tiny white dwarf for several billion years more, before gradually burning out altogether--a fading ember in the heavens.

Answer 6

So far scientists' study show that the sun will never become a neutron star, however scientists are predicting that the sun will eventually become a white dwarf. Right now the sun is going to be a Red Giant. But once the sun uses up all it's hydrogen fuel then it become a white dwarf, after many more millions of years all that thermal energy used up will be worn out and the sun will be a black dwarf.

Answer 7

The sun will not explode, it will turn into a red giant. The sun in around 8 billion years will not be able to burn at its core like it is now. The sun will burn at its surface, this will cause expansion causes the sun to swallow us. Also Our galazy could crash into another galaxy, but we are not sure if that could cause a sun "explosion".

Answer 8

actually the sun is a red giant, we don't really want it to turn in to a black hole

Answer:

No, the sun is a yellow medium star and it does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova and collapse into either a neutron star or a black hole.

In about 5 billion years, it will enter a red giant phase, its outer layers expanding as the hydrogen fuel in the core is consumed and the core contracts and heats up. Helium fusion will begin when the core temperature reaches around 100 million kelvins and will produce carbon, entering the asymptotic giant branch phase.

Earth's fate is precarious. As a red giant, the Sun will have a maximum radius beyond the Earth's current orbit, 1 AU (1.5×1011 m), 250 times the present radius of the Sun. However, by the time it is an asymptotic giant branch star, the Sun will have lost roughly 30% of its present mass due to a stellar wind, so the orbits of the planets will move outward. If it were only for this, Earth would probably be spared, but new research suggests that Earth will be swallowed by the Sun owing to tidal interactions. Even if Earth would escape incineration in the Sun, still all its water will be boiled away and most of its atmosphere would escape into space. In fact, even during its current life in the main sequence, the Sun is gradually becoming more luminous (about 10% every 1 billion years), and its surface temperature is slowly rising. The Sun used to be fainter in the past, which is possibly the reason why life on Earth has only existed for about 1 billion years on land. The increase in solar temperatures is such that already in about a billion years, the surface of the Earth will become too hot for liquid water to exist, ending all terrestrial life.

Following the red giant phase, intense thermal pulsations will cause the Sun to throw off its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula. The only object that will remain after the outer layers are ejected is the extremely hot stellar core, which will slowly cool and fade as a white dwarf over many billions of years.

Answer 9

Some astronomers predict that the Sun will become a red giant star in about 7 billion (7,000,000,000) years.

Answer 10

Our Sun will turn into a white dwarf first, but over time ( a lot of time) it will eventually turn into a black dwarf.